Tesla to start getting rid of excess contractors

Musk says using third-party workers has gotten out of hand

If Tesla were a boat in a dock, it would be getting its keel scraped clean today.

On Monday, Tesla began the process of what Chief Executive Elon Musk called scrubbing the “barnacles” off of the company with what was described as a new, brutal regime with regards to Tesla contractors.

Musk himself said Tesla would be evaluating the positions of contractors that work with Tesla, but aren’t officially Tesla employees, when he spoke on the company’s firstquarter conference call last week.

It was during that call when Musk said that Tesla’s use of third-party contractors had “really gotten out of control,” and that there was about to be “a lot of barnacle removal” going on at Tesla’s facilities.

That removal got underway Monday.

According to the Electrek blog, Musk sent an email to Tesla employees telling them to notify the company’s human resources department in order to justify “the excellence, necessity and trustworthiness” of “every non-Tesla person who has badge access to our buildings or network access to our systems.”

Musk said that any non-Tesla contractors who don’t have a Tesla employee vouch for them “will be denied access to our facilities and networks on Monday morning.”

It’s not known how many Tesla contractors this level of barnacle scrubbing will affect. A Tesla spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the matter.